C.diff
typically arises due to imbalances in your normal gut bacteria. You
see your gut is like a city, a city with about 100 trillion bacterial
residents happily munching away on a banquet of bowel contents. The
average person has about 1000 different types of bacteria in their
gut, and about 3% of healthy adults have C.diffin that
mix. The
C.diff doesn't cause them any problems because its numbers are kept
in check by the other gut bacteria. However treatment with broad
spectrum antibiotics can disrupt this happy community, killing off
vast swathes of bacteria but crucially not the C.diff which is
particularly hardy. Given free rein the C.diff multiplies rapidly and
produce toxins which damage the gut. In some people this causes mild
diarrhoea and abdominal pain, in others it can lead to torrential
diarrhoea, perforation of the colon and death.

Traditional treatment involves stopping the broad spectrum antibiotics and
prescribing antibiotics which specifically target the
C.diff.
However C. diff is becoming resistant to these antibiotics and about 22% of patients who are treated then relapse.
This can result in a cycle of illness and hospital admission which is
costly to the patient and the hospital.

So
it's time to start thinking outside of the box. Cue the poo
transplant. The thinking goes like this- if the cause of the problem
is disruption to the normal community of gut bacteria, why not just
pop those bacteria back in to crowd out the C.diff? Simples.
Practically, the first step is to identify a donor, usually a close
relative of the patient, and screen them for a range of infectious
diseases and parasites. You should also make sure they haven't
recently consumed anything the intended recipient is allergic to,
before asking them to make their "donation". You then pop it in a
household blender, adding salt water or milk to achieve a slurry
consistency and blitz it down. Next you need to strain your
concoction to remove large materials- one medic in the UK uses coffee filters. Top tip. Then you're ready to administer it- about 25ml from above (via a tube
into the stomach), or 250ml from
below.

Now,
its important to note that poo transplants are experimental. To date
only small case studies have been carried out, but with 200 total
reported cases, an average cure rate of
96%and no serious adverse events reported to date, it's worth carrying
out a large trial to assess it thoroughly.

So,
poo transplants-the ideal treatment for a cash strapped NHS. Its
cheap, plentiful and it seems to
work.
We just have to convince people to consume someone else's poo....or,
let us pop it in their bums. Bottoms up!

About Me

A little grey cell is a collection of stories from the worlds of science and medicine.
My first book 'Immune' holds a treasure trove of stories about how the body defends and protects us from the millions of microbes out there. It also highlights how the immune system is intertwined with our daily lives, from cursing us with allergies to perhaps influencing who we fall in love with! It's available to pre-order on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Immune-Your-Body-Defends-Protects/dp/1472915119/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1488302845&sr=8-1